set 1974 : no. 2

A grab bag of information on various topics, including current research projects and new periodicals.

This issue of Research Briefs includes a summary of a report published by the Australian Council for Educational Research (ACER) in April 1974. Many New Zealand teachers will be familiar with some of the earlier ACER publications, such as Listening Aids Through the Grades and Books for the Retarded Reader, and will be interested to know that NZCER is now the New Zealand agent for ACER publications.

The books used to teach children to read in New Zealand schools present a narrowed view of reality which may be harmful to girls. This is the general finding of an inquiry completed earlier this year by a working party set up under the auspices of the Council for Equal Pay and Equal Opportunity.

The Schools Council for Curriculum and Examinations is an independent body with a majority of teacher members. Its purpose is to undertake in England and Wales research and development work in curricula, teaching methods and examinations in schools, and in other ways to help teachers decide what to teach and how to teach it. In all its work it has regard to the general principle, expressed in its constitution, that each school should have the fullest possible measure of
responsibility… Read more

Covers information on three topics: "Human development and relationships in the school curriculum", "Moral education in Ontario" and "Twenty years after—a long-term follow-up of the 1955 cohort of entrants to university in New Zealand".

Comic strip on the topic of sex education.

"Harry and I had been very much in love for some time but one day something happened which changed our whole lives ..."

This review looks at the way one aspect of a child's approach to right and wrong, namely, his moral thinking or judgement, varies as he gets older. Moral development here is viewed mainly from one theoretical viewpoint, which stresses the idea that new ways of moral thinking develop from within, and are based on the child's active reorganization of his experience. This perspective is usually called 'cognitive-developmental'; it was first presented by John Dewey, but later developed in depth… Read more

Moral education means different things to different people. To those of us who have worked on this Moral Education Project, moral education is concerned with how people actually live, how their behaviour affects others, and whether their behaviour makes a happier, healthier, fuller life possible.
We began by trying to discover in which situations secondary-school children did not know what to do or how to proceed. From a study of eight hundred pupils' wants and expectations we learned… Read more

A set of stories and discussion pieces related to moral development.

Education may be viewed, simply, as a deliberate attempt to change aspects of the learner's behaviour—his knowledge, skills, and attitudes in some desirable way. Educational evaluation may be viewed as the process which involves the systematic collection of evidence to determine whether certain changes have taken place in this behaviour.